HONG KONG (Reuters – Chinese property stocks rallied Thursday, as investors cheered the pledges of Beijing’s top economists to save the sector. The market was buoyed by growing domestic pressures.

China’s economic tsar and Vice Premier Liu He said Wednesday that the government must reduce the risks to the industry. He also suggested measures to encourage a new model of development for the sector.

Liu called on the Financial Stability and Development Committee to adopt market-friendly policies for the support of the economy.

Liu’s promise was supported by many other institutions including the central bank, securities regulators and currency regulators.

This pushed the Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index up 14.8% at midday on Thursday. It was 5.8% higher than the main index. On Wednesday, the sub-index had already increased by 14.7%.

Thomas Kwok from CHIEF Securities, heads equity business, stated that “the shares that bounce a lot” are the same ones that dropped a lot before and are still low now. Is this a sustainable rally? This is a problem, as we might not be able to see policies that fundamentally alter the liquidity issue for developers.

Sunac China rose to 47.5%, surpassing 40% at the end of this month, as it was losing close to 40% due debt repayments.

Top developer Country Garden and embattled China Evergrande Group both rose 22%.

Since Beijing’s push to lower high debt levels has caused a liquidity crisis among major developers that led to some bond defaults, and project cancellations, the real estate sector has suffered for months.

Liu’s comments prompted the insurance and banking regulator to announce that it will seek to stabilize land prices and transform the realty sector, encourage acquisition loans and mergers, and promote the purchase of distressed assets through acquisition loans.

Later, the finance ministry reported that China had put a planned property-tax trial for this year in ice.

In recent months, trading in property stocks was volatile. These stocks grew on hopes of more ease in the sector, but fell this month because of continued concerns over liquidity risks.

Citi cautioned, however that broad-based easing and flooding liquidity for properties is virtually impossible. This was despite Wednesday’s encouraging tone. However, Citi did not make any major policy changes.

According to an investment bank report, “Recent marginal fine-tunes…aren’t game-changers.” The best you can expect is to have targeted downside protection in place for some (company) names, through coordination with the local government and financial institution.